


ain't the mark or the scar that makes you one

by escherzo



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Other, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 10:39:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16659628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo
Summary: Eddie swallows against the lump in his throat.He's spent his whole life fighting the cards he was dealt. It might take a lifetime to accept being loved unconditionally by something that knows the hand he's holding and doesn't care.





	ain't the mark or the scar that makes you one

**Author's Note:**

> title from MCR's "thank you for the venom" bc at heart i am still a bandom fucker
> 
> general warnings: fairly vague but still there implied/referenced childhood sexual abuse, a medium-sized stack of mental illness discussion. dr. skirth is alive b/c fuck y'all she better be. is this issuefic? i feel like this might be issuefic. whoops. 
> 
> friends who subscribed to me in general for my hockey fic i swear i am getting back to that shortly i am just taking a detour right now

Eddie's body is a temple to a god he doesn't worship, and all its doors are locked.

*

 **We are perfect,** Venom tells him, and in the moments they spend as their shared form, Eddie agrees. Together, they are. A roiling, dark mass of pure power and adrenaline, unable to be hurt, a chorus of joy in the potential and wholeness they represent. Dr. Skirth calls them a scientific miracle, even as her hands shake so badly when she comes to visit that Venom has to catch her coffee cups so she doesn't shatter them, too curious and too guilty to stay away but haunted by the memory of Phage controlling her body like a marionette until she screamed at the right frequency to expel them and escape. She did shatter the mug, the first time, and made a mess of her hands as she frantically apologized and tried to pick up the shards. 

Venom is the best part of him, Eddie thinks, these days, although Venom disagrees loudly and at length on the matter. It's just—they're in his head, in every part of him, but on an emotional level he is still very much waiting alone at the baggage claim.

“Once I got you out, you could have picked anyone,” Eddie says, for what feels like the hundredth time. He's sprawled out on the lumpy couch in his front room in nothing but boxers, thumbing the little knotted scar from where the drains were put in under his armpit. 

**Yes. I wanted you,** Venom says, as usual. This is a well-worn road for them. Venom rarely uses _I_ anymore, except for when they're having this argument. 

_Christ, get better taste,_ Eddie thinks but doesn't say, as though that will prevent Venom from knowing it. 

**You are not a standard-issue human, but you are ours, and so you are perfect. And our taste is impeccable.**

“I'm a Ken doll,” Eddie says, laughing to himself although there is no real humor in it. “A Ken doll with five different mental illnesses. You could have had _anyone_.”

 **We didn't want _anyone_ ,** Venom says, a tendril sneaking out from his side to stroke the part of his chest that still has full sensation. **Just you. You are enough. Also you are not a Ken doll, because you are not made of plastic. You are real and whole as you are.**

Eddie swallows against the lump in his throat. 

He's spent his whole life fighting the cards he was dealt. It might take a lifetime to accept being loved unconditionally by something that knows the hand he's holding and doesn't care. 

*

Eddie lied to Anne about Venom being back for about a week, after he was sure Venom was going to make it—a week he spent terrified, buying up as much chocolate and raw fish as he could stock and resting for twelve hours a day, in the hopes that it would help—and then he knew it was going to last and got lost in the elation of it and went a little manic and texted her at four in the morning to let her know. It was good to feel it again. It'd been awhile. The bubbling joy of the promise he'd never be alone again ended up resulting in four sort-of coherent texts, a deep clean of his entire apartment and also all the debris in the hallway, and a late-night ride on his motorcycle through most of San Francisco, twenty miles over the speed limit. 

She and Dan both take a fond, bemused approach to them these days. He gets lost, sometimes, in how grateful he is in that. He's thirty two. Having any close friends who aren't just friendly coworkers is a crapshoot at thirty two, much less your ex and her new boyfriend. But they both put their lives and reputations on the line for him, even if probably he didn't deserve it, and so he's doing his best to pay them back.

He's trying not to think about the other thing.

*

He's definitely still thinking about the other thing.

Anne and Dan are engaged now and she's pregnant. She assured him she didn't mind that he wasn't capable of that, but here they all are. 

**Eddie,** Venom says, and they're in their combined form as they lay here, under the covers, because when Eddie is feeling like shit about his body it's a lot easier to deal with it being an entirely different, better body. **She really didn't mind.**

 _She said that,_ Eddie says, from the inside. _But maybe--_

 **Eddie,** Venom says, patient, pulling the covers up to their chin. **I was inside her head. She really didn't. She thought she'd be kind of garbage, as a mom, and was a little relieved that it'd take more work for that to happen with you two. Maybe enough work it'd never happen at all. She thinks Dan is very responsible, and probably good with babies, and even back then she was thinking that since he has a good income they could probably get a nanny so she wouldn't have to do much. She's doing this for him. Not because there was something wrong with you.**

“I feel like it's probably a violation of her trust to tell me that,” Eddie says, making their shared form frown a little. “But—thank you.”

 **You're welcome,** Venom says. **Also do you still want me to turn on that bright box in the morning before you wake up.**

“Lightbox,” Eddie corrects. “And yes.”

It's winter. His garbage fire of a brain barely works on the best of days, but especially not in the winter, or on days when it's overcast, and he can't very well spend time outside as of late. The air quality in San Francisco is terrible right now. His lightbox is about the only thing keeping his brain from turning into a bag of cats. 

*

Venom lets him get drunk sometimes. They take care of his hangover, but seem to understand that once in awhile he just really needs to not live in his own head. It's only after the first time they've made that arrangement that Venom starts hiding his phone.

“Venob thinks yr great,” the text Eddie sees he's sent, that first time, reads, “also same?? sorry i'm a mess idk why you evrt bothered but esp now”

“Call me when you're sober, please,” Anne sends back, early in the afternoon. 

“So,” Eddie says, once Anne picks up the phone. “Call you about--”

“Venom is worried about you,” Anne says. “They called me at eight with your phone.” She sighs. 

“Eddie,” she continues, “or I guess, both of you, would you just _talk_.” From her tone, Eddie can picture her pinching the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off the headache he's causing her. “They're—god. They're worried that if they kiss you you'll freak out. Also you've got an alien monster from outer space living in your body that wants to make out with you and I'm way calmer about this than I should be.” 

“They're a nice monster,” Eddie offers, scratching the back of his neck. “But. Yeah. I'll talk.”

 _That's new_ , he thinks, and probably she thinks, too, given everything, because god knows if he was anything when they were together it was emotionally constipated. 

_Hey,_ Eddie says. _Love you._

**Love you too,We can not “make out” with you if it will make you uncomfortable.**

_No,_ Eddie says, smiling as Venom manifests a head. _I want to. We're just—going to have to test the waters on what I can handle. That's all._

He can handle that tongue down his throat just fine, it turns out. 

*

“I feel like you became him so he could keep that hurt little girl safe,” his sister told him once, and the knot in his gut took weeks to go away. 

They don't talk much, anymore. Not after he was outed in New York and went west. But his brain still sticks on that, sometimes. He doesn't think it's true, or that that's _why_ , but short of having a time machine to go back and undo what happened to him as a kid, mostly what he's got to work with is what he's got, and so he can allow that it's possible, at least. 

These days he becomes Venom, and he knows every part of him is safe, then. 

There are still little minefields, here and there. There are parts of him Venom isn't allowed in. There are ways Venom isn't allowed to touch him; a curious tendril down the back of his jeans and he's thrown headlong into, _”Oh, my hand just got stuck,”_ , and he has to sit down on the floor right then and there, remembering hiding out in the bathroom, after, heart pounding, having no idea what just happened or why or if he'd done something to prompt it. 

Venom apologizes, after, **So sorry. Should have known. Should have looked but those memories were so closed off we didn't want to pry too hard and hurt you. Love you, Eddie.**

 _Love you,_ Eddie says, closing his eyes, dizzy and trying to not be sick. _Please don't do that again._

**Never. We promise. We didn't know, but. Never again.**

Venom eases the nausea with a few careful nudges in his brain, and he smiles, a little, even if every part of him still feels shaky. 

*

These days, sometimes, when he and Venom are sprawled out naked on his bed and he's getting his breath back, Venom brings him back down to Earth. Centers him in his own body.

 **We love your face,** Venom begins, and licks a stripe down his cheek. **Your lips, especially. They feel so good around us.**

 **And we love the muscles here--** a tongue swiping out to check in on the bulge of his shoulderblades. **And the scars, even if we still want to heal them a little.**

 _I paid six thousand dollars from my first job for those scars,_ Eddie says, breathless but so fond it hurts, and there are parts of his chest that are still fully numb, over a decade later, may always be numb, but he likes to think they tingle a little from Venom's touch anyway. 

**We love here, too. So soft. So full of tater tots.**

“Hey!”

 **Only teasing!** Venom's laughter is so deep and soft that it makes Eddie's whole body vibrate, Venom's head bobbing a bit as it's manifested enough to lick at his stomach. **Beautiful anyway. Especially full of tater tots.**

“Where else?” Eddie asks, biting his lip.

 **Hmm. Here, you always taste good,** Venom says, that tongue wrapping around his clit, hard from the attention, the pseudo-foreskin a little pulled back. **But you always make the best noises when we are here.**

Venom licks into his ass, and he twitches, reaching out to grab fistfuls of his sheets. Venom's tongue delves a little deeper and he whimpers, twisting, pulling the sheets off the bed entirely.

 **Good,** Venom purrs, and when Eddie feels that tongue widen inside him he throws his head back, eyes squeezed shut, and holds on for the ride. 

*

It's as easy as breathing to get on the roof of their building, now, and so most mornings, unless Eddie's had nightmares and couldn't sleep properly, they sit perched above the rest of the world and watch the dawn. 

**Perfect,** Venom murmurs, tendrils wrapping around him from all sides. 

The hell of it is, in moments like this, Eddie can almost believe it. Can let himself trust that what he is is good enough. Is _enough_ , period.

Venom whips out a tendril to catch a passing early morning bird, and Eddie's still smiling when his mouth becomes _their_ mouth and they swallow it whole. 

“Good morning, love,” he murmurs, spitting out feathers. 

**Good morning** Venom says, and together, they watch the sun rise.


End file.
